B-1 crew rescued after crash in Indian Ocean

4 bailed, floated hours in the dark

December 13, 2001|By John Diamond, Washington Bureau.

WASHINGTON — Bobbing in the Indian Ocean, their B-1 bomber having crashed and sunk, the four Air Force crewmen used radios, electronic beacons and their last available flare to guide rescuers to their position.

They had floated for two hours in the dark Wednesday night after ejecting from their swing-wing plane, which developed multiple failures en route back to an island base from a bombing run over Afghanistan, 2,500 miles to the north.

"Going through an ejection like that is about the most violent thing I've ever felt," Air Force Capt. William Steele told Pentagon reporters in a telephone hook-up from the destroyer USS Russell, which had rushed to the rescue.

"It didn't really hit me as to what happened until I was already under my parachute. At that point, my mind was racing."

The crash, the first loss of a U.S. attack plane in the two-month Afghan campaign, took place at about 8:30 a.m. CST Wednesday, or about 8:30 p.m. in the region, off the island of Diego Garcia, where the U.S. and Britain maintain a major air base.

The crew was rescued two hours later.

The cause is under investigation, but Pentagon officials said it had nothing to do with hostile fire. Steele would say only that, as a result of "multiple malfunctions," he could no longer control the bomber.

At first, Steele said, he thought he might make an emergency landing, circling Diego Garcia to reduce the fuel on board. But within 15 minutes, it became clear the crew had to bail out.

Jumped from 15,000 feet

In a rapid, computer-controlled sequence designed to prevent the ejecting crewmen from colliding with each other or with the exploding roof hatches, the four were hurled out of the plane at an altitude of 15,000 feet, their chutes opening automatically.

Steele and some of the officers who responded to the emergency described a harried search involving the Russell, a P-3 Orion aircraft with a searchlight and a KC-10 tanker jet whose crew made radio contact with the downed B-1 crew. They were floating in shallow, warm, shark-free water about 30 miles north of the island.

Navy Cmdr. Hank Miranda, skipper of the Russell, set a course for the B-1's last known position and directed aircraft in the area to try contact the crew.

Aboard the KC-10, Air Force Capt. Mike Dali reached the B-1's co-pilot by radio. Dali said the co-pilot, identified only by his call name, "Rooster," had lost much of his equipment on ejection from the bomber and was down to his last flare.

Steele had been able to paddle his tiny inflatable raft over to another crew member, but the other two were not in sight.

Following the searchlight of the P-3, Navy Lt. Dan Manetzke steered his "rigid inflatable" rescue boat launched from the Russell toward the downed crew. Other than a shouted, "Are you hurt?" few words were exchanged.

"They were just as happy to see us as we were to see them," Manetzke said.

Steele corrected him: "We were much happier to see them than they were to see us."

Manetzke quickly picked up three of the four men. "Rooster" was still missing. But he was in contact with Dali on the KC-10 overhead. Dali waited until the rescue boat drew near.

"Then we had him pop that flare, and the rescue boat moved right in," Dali said.

The violence of the ejection left the crew members with cuts and bruises but no serious injuries, Steele reported. "It's been kind of a rough night."

The crash marked the first loss of a B-1B Lancer on a combat mission since the aircraft was first used in combat over Iraq three years ago. The B-1B became operational in 1987.

But the mishap was by no means the first serious problem to arise with an aircraft whose troubled history of political controversy, budget overruns and mechanical troubles dates back to the Carter administration.

According to Air Force records, six B-1s have crashed in the last 15 years, either from system failures or accidents resulting from extreme maneuvers. And, in recent years, the Air Force has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get the B-1 fleet of 72 aircraft ready to fly 75 percent of the time.

Bombers have large capacity

Built to carry nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union at supersonic speeds and low altitudes to avoid radar, the B-1 has been converted for use in dropping conventional bombs.

The B-1, the Cold War-era B-52 and the B-2 Spirit bomber have flown 10 percent of the attack sorties in the Afghan campaign but have dropped 70 percent of the bombs, a testament to their heavy carrying capacity.

Costing $280 million each and with no production line building additional B-1s, losing one is "unfortunate," said Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But he said the much higher priority was the crew.

The B-1 had been on a "loiter" mission to Afghanistan, circling over the Tora Bora cave complex awaiting orders from the ground to attack emerging targets.